Tag Archives: 35th Legislative District Senate

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee was scheduled to be in town on Sunday
for a campaign fundraiser for 35th Legislative District Senate
candidate Irene Bowling, a Democrat.

We asked permission to go, but were informed the event at the
Rice Fergus Miller building in Bremerton was closed to the press,
not unusual for a fundraiser. We were disappointed, though, because
we had an invitation. It was sent to us via Twitter from the 35th
Legislative District Democrats. We should have been suspicious,
though, because Twitter is unreliable. Remember, it was on Twitter
that we first read that Dewey defeated Truman.

Suggested contributions for the fundraiser ranged from $50 for
the “guest” level to $500 to be considered a “host.” While “guest”
sounds right for me, $50 does not.

Inslee’s presence demonstrates his interest in seeing the state
Senate taken back by Democrats, and Bowling’s race is against Tim
Sheldon, a Democrat. Let me explain. He is a Democrat, but caucuses
as a Republican, a reality that demands two weeks’ time for
Washington State Civics teachers. In English class it makes for a
complicated sentence diagram with lots of subservient clauses and
semicolons.

Inslee wants Democrats in the Senate because he has big
ambitions to tackle carbon emissions and would like the 2015
Legislature to cooperate. If Republicans are in charge of one of
the chambers he fears his proposal will be as popular as a Richard
Sherman biography at Crabtree and Evelyn. (They sell books,
right?)

To get a Democratic majority Inslee is being aided by California
billionaire Tom Steyer, who this week dropped $1 million into a
committee, NextGen Climate Action Committee-Washington Sponsored by
Tom Steyer. Steyer’s organization followed that with a news release
saying it will target 25 percent of the voters in Washington. He’s
doing the same in Oregon.

So far the committee hasn’t spent any real money, but this is
what the news release said about Washington:

NextGen Climate will focus on races where there is an
opportunity to discuss climate issues with voters, including, but
not limited to supporting Tami Green in the 28th Senate District
and Matt Isenhower in the 45th Senate District.

Whether any Steyer money finds its way to the 35th depends on
party polling, which will reveal whether voters in the district are
bucking the common assumption that voters who picked Republican
Travis Couture in the primary will mostly side with Sheldon in the
general election, since Couture was eliminated from the race.
Sheldon thinks he’ll pick up most of Couture’s voters because he is
more conservative. Bowling believes she will get most of the
Couture voters, in some part because she is not Tim Sheldon.

An earlier $250,000 contribution to an independent committee set
up to campaign for Bowling made some think there were signs Bowling
could beat Sheldon. That changed when $225,000 was returned,
leaving some to wonder what the polling says now.

As of Friday Bowling had raised about $150,000 and still had
about $55,000 of that unspent. Sheldon has raised more, about
$290,000, and has about $100,000 left to spend. A word or two from
the governor might close the gap at least a little.

Crosscut launched Wednesday a
series that will focus on swing districts. The first
focus is on the 35th Legislative District Senate race. Knute
Berger, Benjamin Anderstone and Robert Mak teamed up to provide a
comprehensive look at the district as a whole and the race
specifically.

The series offers historical information about the district,
including how it has changed. From the Berger story:

Some observers say the politically purple Mason County, once
a blue stronghold, is trending redder. This may in part be due to
the aging of the population — it has nearly twice the percentage of
adults 65 and older as King County. It’s not alone in that. The
entire Olympic Peninsula population is aging and has — and will
continue to have — the largest concentration of seniors in the
state, percentage-wise. These folks trend conservative, live on
fixed incomes, are often change- and tax-averse. Mason County
voters have been described as socially liberal but fiscally
conservative, which seems to track with the drift of 35th district
politics.

The package looks at what it will take for each candidate to win
and makes that case we have been making here, that for either of
the challengers, Democrat Irene Bowling and Republican Travis
Couture, to win they have to hope they can knock the incumbent,
Democrat Tim Sheldon, out in the primary.